Facebook announced on Monday that it has agreed to purchase Instagram, the maker of the popular photo sharing service for iPhone, for $1 billion.

Facebook will acquire the San Francisco-based company for a combination of cash and shares in Facebook totaling $1 billion. The transaction is expected to close this quarter.

In a statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is committed to building and growing Instagram independently, meaning it will not be tied into Facebook's existing social networking website.

"We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience," Zuckerberg said. "We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook."

Instagram has been one of the most popular applications for the iPhone, routinely appearing among the top downloaded applications for iOS. With the application, users can take a picture and apply a digital filter, then upload and share pictures on a variety of social networking services, including Instagram's own.

Instagram first launched in the iPhone App Store in October of 2010, and it eventually made its way to the Google Android platform just last week, achieving more than a million downloads via Google Play in less than 24 hours. Facebook's announcement that it will acquire Instagram comes just six days after the application became available for Android.

Apple itself highlighted Instagram in December with its own iTunes Rewind 2011 selections. Apple's editorial team selected Instagram as the iPhone application of the year for 2011.

Facebook can find you in someone else's pics using their unique facial recognition implementation, something my son didn't like at all (altho he thought it was cool at first). He said a couple kids at school got in trouble for pictures their parents found in other kid's albums by just searching for them by their name, even tho their name was never mentioned in the picture descriptions. Facebook's software simply matched the images. With pictures often geo-tagged as well, combining your image with your name and profile could place you in a time and place without having to physically track you.

They said Instagram has no business model and no clear plan of monetizing their service.. Turns out they have. Get Facebook to buy them and grossly overpay.

Things are changing. This is the age of collecting users information. Instagram business model is to have as many of your pictures as possible and to link them to your Facebook or twitter account. Facebook want access to more of your personal data including pictures. The more they know about you the more accurate ads they serve you. Not to mention MS Bing share of the collected users data.

Things are changing. This is the age of collecting users information. Instagram business model is to have as many of your pictures as possible and to link them to your Facebook or twitter account. Facebook want access to more of your personal data including pictures. The more they know about you the more accurate ads they serve you. Not to mention MS Bing share of the collected users data.

Such a stupid business model. Like many people I take steps to actively avoid online ads. Of the ones that sneak through, I pay little heed to them and the more they are "targeted" at me the more obvious and ridiculous they are.

I am pleased to say that Facebook doesn't know a single thing about me, and they never will.

As for Instagram, well good for them. If somebody can make an app and then sell their company for a billion dollars a short time afterwards, then I'd say that's a decent achievement. Personally, I don't use Instagram, as I'm not a retarded hipster and I'm not into taking crappy photos and then applying all sorts of dumb filters to them. But to each their own.

Things are changing. This is the age of collecting users information. Instagram business model is to have as many of your pictures as possible and to link them to your Facebook or twitter account. Facebook want access to more of your personal data including pictures. The more they know about you the more accurate ads they serve you. Not to mention MS Bing share of the collected users data.

There are like 27 million users of Instagram... That's like paying $37 for each one. How they are planing to recover that money, user wise? I guess they eventually integrate it to Facebook, whatever they say now

Such a stupid business model. Like many people I take steps to actively avoid online ads. Of the ones that sneak through, I pay little heed to them and the more they are "targeted" at me the more obvious and ridiculous they are.

I do the same thing too. I don't even see ads since I use AdBlock. But you will be surprised how many people out there click those ads. It is stupid business model but it works! $1 billion for a two year business is super success.

Even as Apple grows to be so huge, their users continue to identify with the idea of being in a "special club." I think Apple maintains this by consistently offering the best experience within their products. While this attribute is only subjective truth (and heatedly debated across the blogosphere), the ideal is shared almost unanimously by all users.

Android's user base is as fragmented as their OS: they all use Android for different reasons. In fact, the only consistently shared reason I have seen between Adroid users is that they refuse to buy Apple products on "principle."

Yeah, even going by a desktop market of 1 million units/year with $100 OS, it would have been worth more.

It possibly wasn't as sure a bet though as it depended on uptake. Instagram, as mentioned, already has over 30 million accounts so to justify the cost, they only have to make just over $30 per user.

Facebook makes it's money from advertising so say they get 50c per click from advertisers for 10% of the subscribers per day. How long before they make their billion back? Less than 2 years. Their subscriber base will of course grow when it's advertised on Facebook.

it's just a bunch of cheesy old-timey filters and there are dozens of apps that can and do have the same features.

It's also almost guaranteed to lose popularity over the long haul. People want their photos to look like retro 60's, 70's and 80's crap now, but why would anyone expect this desire to be a permanent thing?

I am pleased to say that Facebook doesn't know a single thing about me, and they never will.

As for Instagram, well good for them. If somebody can make an app and then sell their company for a billion dollars a short time afterwards, then I'd say that's a decent achievement. Personally, I don't use Instagram, as I'm not a retarded hipster and I'm not into taking crappy photos and then applying all sorts of dumb filters to them. But to each their own.

From your single post, this forum along with the rest of the Internet now knows that:

- you don't use Instagram
- you don't use Facebook
- products geared towards hipsters would likely not interest you

And you probably:
- have an interest in tech
- have an interest in Apple, particularily in regards to your handle and signature

That's going off just 1 of over 2,400 posts made by you.

This information could potentially (if not already) be data mined by Google and sold to third parties such as Facebook. As a previous poster stated, Facebook can even recognize you in photos a friend may have posted that had you in it without even having been tagged manually and cross-referenced to anything else known about you in some server.

Yes I'm doing a lot of what-if type scenarios that may seem far-fetched, but it's certainly possible to do even today. I'm sure the data can/will be used by parties outside the marketing industry as well.

I hate to break it to you but if you have any friends on Facebook and they have your email in their address book then Facebook knows about you.

I guess if somebody that I know has my email in their address book, then Facebook knows of my existence, or at least one of my email addresses, but I've never signed up or logged into Facebook, so hopefully they don't know anything more about me.

Facebook can find you in someone else's pics using their unique facial recognition implementation, something my son didn't like at all (altho he thought it was cool at first). He said a couple kids at school got in trouble for pictures their parents found in other kid's albums by just searching for them by their name, even tho their name was never mentioned in the picture descriptions. Facebook's software simply matched the images. With pictures often geo-tagged as well, combining your image with your name and profile could place you in a time and place without having to physically track you.

A little disconcerting if you don't anticipate it IMO.

Solution: Don't ever post pictures of people anywhere where search engines can find them unless it no problem at all for the people depicted for all the world to know what can be seen on those pictures. If I am attending a conference which has a public list of attendees, I don't mind if they post pictures of myself. I was there, it is public knowledge I was there, no problem at all. For all other kinds of images: just don't post them where a search engine can find them.

This information could potentially (if not already) be data mined by Google and sold to third parties such as Facebook. As a previous poster stated, Facebook can even recognize you in photos a friend may have posted that had you in it without even having been tagged manually and cross-referenced to anything else known about you in some server.

Yes I'm doing a lot of what-if type scenarios that may seem far-fetched, but it's certainly possible to do even today. I'm sure the data can/will be used by parties outside the marketing industry as well.

I don't disagree with your post at all. I have no doubt that companies like Google and Facebook will use whatever means, both legal and illegal, that they can to gather as much information as they can about anybody that they can.

From your single post, this forum along with the rest of the Internet now knows that:

- you don't use Instagram
- you don't use Facebook
- products geared towards hipsters would likely not interest you

And you probably:
- have an interest in tech
- have an interest in Apple, particularily in regards to your handle and signature

That's going off just 1 of over 2,400 posts made by you.

This information could potentially (if not already) be data mined by Google and sold to third parties such as Facebook.

Until Facebook starts their writing-style recognition software, all that information is only about a faceless nickname. If one cannot link that nickname to an actual person, no harm is done.

(And my hope is that once the writing-style recognition software becomes common, writing-style obfuscation software will also become available. That, though, still leaves all the legacy posts, pre-writing-style obfuscation software to exploit.)

Facebook can find you in someone else's pics using their unique facial recognition implementation, something my son didn't like at all (altho he thought it was cool at first). He said a couple kids at school got in trouble for pictures their parents found in other kid's albums by just searching for them by their name, even tho their name was never mentioned in the picture descriptions. Facebook's software simply matched the images. With pictures often geo-tagged as well, combining your image with your name and profile could place you in a time and place without having to physically track you.

A little disconcerting if you don't anticipate it IMO.

Although it is possible for Facebook to do that, it was my understanding that they only suggest who to tag so it is more likely that your son's friends were being tagged by others, not Facebook directly. And like always, it is difficult to keep a secret about anything especially if there is a photo of it. Those kids are just learning that the hard way. If Facebook automatically tagged people they would be in a heap of trouble. Can you imagine a stalker taking pictures of someone and then uploading them to Facebook to see if they can be automatically tagged to find out who they are.

Although it is possible for Facebook to do that, it was my understanding that they only suggest who to tag so it is more likely that your son's friends were being tagged by others, not Facebook directly. And like always, it is difficult to keep a secret about anything especially if there is a photo of it. Those kids are just leaning that the hard way. If Facebook automatically tagged people they would be in a heap of trouble. Can you imagine a stalker taking pictures of someone and then uploading them to Facebook to see if they can be automatically tagged to find out who they are.

exactly what is the difference if FB "suggests" the tag versus applies it itself?

it's actually worse b/c not only does FB tag people without their consent, FB also gets a real human to validate and strengthen it's facial recognition algorithm.

I am pleased to say that Facebook doesn't know a single thing about me, and they never will.

I'm not a Facebook user or member either but unless you're blocking scripts in addition to cookies, yes they probably do know a few things about you. IIRC Facebook code loads even with this site, tho I block all Facebook scripts thru Firefox No Scripts add-on.

I'm not a Facebook user or member either but unless you're blocking scripts in addition to cookies, yes they probably do know a few things about you. IIRC Facebook code loads even with this site, tho I block all Facebook scripts thru Firefox No Scripts add-on.

I do have those scripts blocked. I currently have Ghostery, Adblock and Click2Flash enabled on my Safari browser.

I am quite suspicious when I visit a site and all of a sudden I see scripts being blocked from Google, Facebook and a bunch of other information collection agencies.

....The more they know about you the more accurate ads they serve you...

You are totally right about that. Though when I look at the "targeted" ads that FB, goo or any of the others are serving up, I really doubt their business model. I have yet to see a "targeted" ad on FB, goo, amazon, or anywhere else that is aligned with my needs or interests.